J.A.C.K. (previously known as Jackhammer) is a brand new level editor for games with a quake-style BSP architecture (Half-Life, Quake, Hexen II, Quake II, Quake III, Gunman Chronicles). The aim is to develop a convenient cross-platform tool capable of incorporating the best features of existing editors, such as Valve Hammer Editor, Q3Radiant and others. The list of supported games will be extended. Today it has finally become available in Steam Store!

We promised that J.A.C.K. will be eventually released on Steam in Q4 2016. And today it has finally become available in Steam Store! Thanks everybody for support! Today we are presenting the Steam version 1.1.1212 with a set of SteamWorks features. As it was said previously, there will be two versions of the editor: the Steam one, commercial, with Steam-specific features, and non-Steam, completely free, although updated not very often. If you would like to support the developer, you can buy the Steam version (save 15% until December 23!), but if you don't - no problem, just leave things they used to be. Apart from the Steam-specific features, the functionality of both versions is almost the same.

What is J.A.C.K.?

J.A.C.K. (previously known as Jackhammer) is a brand new level editor for games with a quake-style BSP architecture. The aim is to develop a convenient cross-platform tool capable of incorporating the best features of existing editors, such as Valve Hammer Editor, Q3Radiant and others. Despite Quake and Half-Life having been released a long time ago, the large community have arisen around, still developing mods and games on their bases. However the existing editors suffer from fundamental disadvantages their users are well familiar with. J.A.C.K. does aspire to be the universal level design tool for classic games. But not only the classics! The editor shall become a key development tool for the Volatile engine, that is why its second name is Volatile Development Kit.

We present the first commercial Steam release - version 1.1.1212. If you buy it on Steam, you'll enjoy the following Steam-specific features:

Automatic Configuration: creation of game configurations in the editor in a couple of clicks.

SteamCloud Service: cloud storage for maps, ability to synchronize with local files.

Automatic Update: keep your editor up-to-date with all the recent features and bugfixes!

Steam Fun: achievements, stats and Steam trading cards!

Why buy Steam version?

You may ask a simple question: why would one buy the commerical version, if it is almost the same as the free version? Here is the point:

Every program is not perfect, and there are issues. With the free version if J.A.C.K., you got used to wait for months until those annoying bugs get fixed. With the Steam version, you have always an up-to-date version with the latest features and bugfixes. Furthermore, you'll be able to participate in J.A.C.K. Beta Program, to get the most recent version of the editor.

Keep your map sources safe with the SteamCloud storage. You can move them from one computer to another, and prevent occasionally deleted files from being lost forever.

Create new game configurations with a few clicks. J.A.C.K. will even do its best to automatically detect their install paths!

Some people may find achievements, statistics and badge crafting funny. Why not to share your J.A.C.K. experience with the community?

Still not sure? Your purchase will support the developer, give motivation to work hard, add new features - and probably your requests will be amongst them!

Supported Games

J.A.C.K. currently supports the following games/engines:

Half-Life (GoldSource)

Gunman Chronicles (GoldSource)

Quake (Quake engine)

Hexen II (Quake engine)

Quake II (id Tech 2)

Quake III (id Tech 3)

Please don't be confused with such a small list! Many games on the listed engines are also supported, especially if there is also a FGD file. E.g. you can use J.A.C.K. to make levels for Counter-Strike 1.6 (GoldSource) and Tremulous (id Tech 3).

Disclaimer

J.A.C.K. is not based upon any existing level design software; it uses neither any proprietary code nor results of decompiling and/or reverse engineering of the proprietary software; reconstruction of design and functionality of Valve Hammer Editor is intent because many modders got used to the familiar look and feel.

Useful Links

Steam Store page can be found here. Complete changelog of version 1.1.1212 can be found here. Please visit the official website for more information, F.A.Q., articles and manuals.

I've been to Germany a couple of times, in 2012 and in 2015, and for $12 it was a cheap dinner in a cafe. So I see that you'd rather have a single dinner than thank a developer for his 3-year hard work. At least, that's a fair confession. Thanks.

Yea hard work? Instead adding useless ******** like achievements and Steam trading cards it would be better to fix more important things like the wrong rendered MDL models or the skybox bug...
But its ok, i can easy switch to another editor..

I don't see what's wrong with having a free and a paid version, but people are still complaining on something they don't even have to do.

If J.A.C.K. was a paid-only software, then I'd understand. But the free and Steam version aren't that different.
Compare version 1.1.1064 to 1.1.1212 in functionality. :P

J.A.C.K. is a good map editor, and it's relevant, and up to the standards of today's Half-Life and Quake mapping.

I'll buy when I have the chance, as a "Thank you", because J.A.C.K. is what saved me from my miseries.
I've had problems with Sledge and Hammer (Hammer selects the last brush, Sledge's 2D viewports don't update etc.), and both have crashed at least once, so I switched to (then-called) Jackhammer. :3

Sure, J.A.C.K. has crashed a couple of times as well this year, but that's because I use it far more, but even then, there's the autosave feature which I really appreciate. <3